SCO Friends in the Media Day held at the SCO Secretariat

Journalists from the SCO member countries met at the SCO Secretariat in Beijing on 23 March 2017 to mark SCO Friends in the Media Day.

SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov recalled that on 11 March 2016 the SCO Secretariat hosted a meeting of the heads of the world's leading news agencies: Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao and TASS Director General Sergei Mikhailov. They signed cooperation contracts with the SCO Secretariat. The same day, a decision was taken to celebrate SCO Friends in the Media Day every year.

"This cooperation turned out to be effective and mutually beneficial. Over the past year, Xinhua and TASS have published some 2,000 news reports about the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation," Rashid Alimov said.

This positive initiative has been reinforced today with the signing of a cooperation project between the SCO Secretariat and Kazakhstan's international news agency Kazinform.

The SCO Secretary-General expressed hope that the signing of this contract would advance cooperation with Kazinform to a fundamentally new level.

"I would like to say that the political and economic events held in the SCO framework over the past year have been complemented with a strong cultural and humanitarian component. Information about this is available to the general public thanks to the SCO Secretariat's contribution to the media. We monitor with great interest the developments and news about the SCO family that are available on the upgraded website of the SCO Secretariat. I am confident that the cooperation agreement signed between the SCO Secretariat and Kazinform will boost our cooperation and information ties to a higher level and that a growing number of people in Kazakhstan and other countries in the region will be able to keep abreast with life in the family of the SCO nations," said Kazinform Deputy Director General Zhassulan Toiboldin.

Rashid Alimov also thanked the SCO friends in the media for their attention to the SCO's multifaceted activities and told them about the key events that will be held before the SCO summit in Astana. These include a meeting of SCO National Security Council Secretaries and a meeting of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers.

The attending journalists also heard a presentation of the SCO's official Weibo account and a photo exhibition about Astana, the capital of the Republic of Kazakhstan.